‘Hoax!’ Spox Denies Report Trump Blew Off Jan. 6 Filmmaker Days Before Election So He Could Do Call with Putin
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A spokesperson for Donald Trump sternly denied a report that the then-president nixed a meeting days before the 2020 presidential election for an undocumented phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
British filmmaker Alex Holder, who has become a witness in the January 6 congressional hearings, told Politico this week that in late October of 2020, he was scheduled to sit down with the then-president only to be told Putin was more of a priority. Holder said he was informed of the call by then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, though he said it is only if he remembers the day’s events “correctly.”
“My memory is that the chief of staff sort of came over and said that the interview couldn’t happen today because the president was on the phone,” Holder told the outlet. The filmmaker filmed Trump and his family for weeks for a documentary project that has now become part of the investigation into the Capitol riot.
“I believe, if I remember correctly, that he said that he was on the phone to the president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, which is why the interview had to be postponed,” he said.
According to Holder, the call was made while Trump was making his way from New Hampshire to Maine and was in full campaign mode. Trump spokesperson Liz Harrington released a statement to Business Insider calling the report on the Putin talk a “made up” story part of the conspiracy theory that Putin conspired with Trump on U.S. elections.
“This is a totally made up story, but it doesn’t stop the Fake News from running with another Russia, Russia, Russia hoax,” she said, going on to blast President Joe Biden for making Moscow “richer” with his “anti-American energy policies.”
An anonymous Trump official also denied any phone call taking place to Politico, but reporting at the time does suggest the two world leaders were potentially discussing a nuclear agreement around the same time Holder was filming Trump.
